Pride Strong

Women with full rich voices, pantyhose, studied rocking gait, and solid hands for holding each other up.  Men with cropped hair, delicate waists, iron in their eyes and hidden sway in their hips.  People with adams apples and flowery dresses, green hair cut short and long and in between, bracelets and construction boots and bow ties and eyeliner.

You are power, you are pride, you are strong, you are you.

You are sinew and tendon and grit. Binding muscle and toughness to backbone and structure. Brute strength wrapped in flowery tissue paper, the true gift that you are. You are enveloped in that strength. You need strength to be you.

You smudge society's crisp edges to a soft, natural charcoal image. Society cannot define you or categorize you. Rather, you are a living breathing thesaurus of perfect humanity.

You are as solid as the mountains. As real as the sequoias. As natural as a thunderstorm. Make no apologies for your naturalness, for your reality.

Discovery

How have I known you without meeting you?
Where had we hidden the two parts of our souls?
Rusty souls that perfectly match their jagged edges,
Like old worn friendship charms that have been buried in a sleeping garden.
How have I only just found you?
You, who feel me and sense me and read me and Know me.
We must have met before, of course.
Maybe in the garden, centuries ago.
With the scent of jasmine and sweat and wine.
Burying our charms with silver spades, knowing then, knowing,

We will find them again.

When the garden awakes.